3 Big Things as the Month of May begins

I've got 3 pretty big things to blog about. They're big enough that they almost deserve their own blog entry. In fact, this time last year, I'm sure that's how I'd have presented them. But so much more is happening now, and happening faster than I can keep up with.

I'll just share them in the order they came to my attention.

Big Thing # 1 - Feature interview in Family Fiction's May/June issue.

I don't know how many of you have discovered this gem, but if you love fiction, especially Christian fiction, you need to be reading this magazine. It's available for free online, and actually reads like a print issue magazine, with lots of articles, reviews, book news and interviews. And of course, lots of pictures. Chris Well, the editor, asked me to do an interview about my new book, The Deepest Waters, and it appears on page 54, near the end. My advice would be not to skip to page 54 but read all the good things on the way there.

Click here to see the new issue (then you can navigate to page 54 from there).

Big Thing # 2 - The Deepest Waters received a great review from Crosswalk.com

I've had many wonderful reviews for The Deepest Waters already, including a Blog Tour with over 55 bloggers reading and reviewing the book (posted twice about this below). What makes this review a "Big Thing" is its location...Crosswalk.com. It's the largest Christian website on the internet. And it was a really good review. It was obvious, Kelley Matthews, the woman who wrote it, put a lot of thought into her words, citing in specific ways the things she liked and why. Although mostly very positive, not all of it was. She compared me to bestselling author Nicholas Sparks and said,"Walsh has not perfected the art of romantic fiction like Sparks has, but he holds definite promise." Her last line in the review was nice: "Yes, men really can write romance...."

Here's a larger excerpt of her review:

Dan Walsh takes readers through a tense, suspenseful series of events, asking us to consider more than “Will John survive?” He requires us to consider deeper issues than mere life and death—such as, how does a survivor move on? Or, what roles do forgiveness and hope play in our relationships? What about honor and honesty? The character of believers becomes a central theme.

Due to the plotline—in which John is lost at sea almost from the beginning—Laura becomes the main character for the majority of the story. We learn about their relationship and recent marriage through a series of flashbacks. Punctuating the present action—Laura’s rescue and subsequent journey to New York—these flashbacks also serve to prolong the drama and increase tension. An effective technique...the national tension over slavery plays out on a personal level, with Laura befriending Micah, the slave on her rescue ship who cares for the survivors. The prickly issue of Christians owning fellow Christians becomes an interesting and fulfilling subplot. In fact, Micah’s role increases steadily until readers care as much about his welfare as they do about Laura’s future.

--Crosswalk.com,

Kelley Matthews, reviewer

Click here to read the full review.

Big Thing # 3 - The Cover for my 4th Novel has just been Released!

The Deepest Waters released 5 weeks ago and Revell has already made my 4th novel available for pre-order on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. It's called Remembering Christmas. Obviously, it's a Christmas story. And like my first novel, The Unfinished Gift, it will be released as a hardback (I love hardbacks).

Releasing the cover for Remembering Christmas now is a good thing, a great thing even. It's partly due to the fact I'm writing fulltime now. My new contract with Revell calls for two books a year, and that thrills me. Click on the cover to the right, and it will open much larger in a new window (tell me you wouldn't like to be sitting in that chair...well, when it gets cold again). Click here to head over to Amazon. If you scroll down a bit, you can read a little about the storyline.